It's The Most Insane Time Of The Year
by Cry-Of-A-Warp-Engine
Summary: Christmas has arrived. Everyone wants it to be peaceful but as luck would have it, that's not going to happen for the Klebitz family. Sachi is doing her best with her friends to set up their racing event, Carly and Johnny are doing their best to keep everyone together for a good Christmas while everyone will get the present they want from Trevor. Truth. (Written w/ xXBalorBabeXx)


"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about this during the Christmas party… are you sure a race is a good idea?" Carly asked 16 year old Sachi, the violet eyed blonde adjusting her fingerless gloves which she always wore when driving, so she had a better grip on the wheel.

"It's not just a race, Mom… it's an event. When we reach the finish, there's gonna be stalls, music, and what I'm looking forward to is that we're gonna start off and let the people follow in decorating our cars silly. And I've been racing with Jamie for about 8 months now, there's almost no bend or corner in town that I don't know about, and that hunk of carbon fibre out there is perfect for me." Sachi says, nodding outside to her current car, a yellow Pegassi Vacca.

"I know, it's just… I can't help but worry and your dad's the same way." Carly says.

"I know… I'm a hothead who thinks that carbon fibre and a spitting V12 makes me cool, isn't that what you called us racers once?" Sachi says, Carly remembering that it was Terry who'd originally said that and had gotten her and Johnny saying it too, and they had right up until the day Sachi introduced Jamie to them.

"In all fairness, I had ended up in the hospital with a dislocated shoulder because of your Uncle Franklin's crazy driving." Carly says as Franklin walks in.

"Did you have to knock me out cold that night, Carly?" Franklin says as they hug, Franklin and Sachi hugging. "So what about a racing event, Sachi?" He asks as they let go.

"On the 23rd, drag race on the airport which immediately turns off and into a race through the streets to the observatory. Up there, there's gonna be drifting, music and of course, going silly and decorating the cars. I've already got this huge Christmas balbal which I'm gonna hang on the air intake on Jamie's car." Sachi says.

Carly thought for a split second she heard an echo and then looked out into the backyard… before pushing Sachi out of the way and screaming as a nail slammed into her right hip, all three seeing Trevor walk in.

"Frank, look behind the lamp!" Carly says, Franklin finding a tiny microphone.

"Fucking shoot my mom with a nail gun?!" Sachi yells after standing up and snatching the nail gun from Trevor, aiming it at him.

"I was aiming for you, there'll be no drag racing! Got it?!" Trevor yells.

"You want to act like this, Trevor?! How about I drag race from the airport right up to San-fucking-Fierro, how would you like that?! We've put our work and minds to this event and we're not gonna let _anyone_ trash it, you got that?!" Sachi shouts.

Carly pulled herself up, yanked the nail out of her hip and Trevor jumped back as she threw it at him, the nail lodging into the wall.

"I've said it before, I'll say it again! The holiday season is supposed to be filled with peace and love and if you're too thick in the head to understand that, you've earned yourself a one way ticket to Happy Volts in Bullworth!" Carly says, shouting the last part.

"Carly, do you not watch the weather at all?! They're saying that this year will see the rare San Andreas snowfall, Sachi's never even stepped in snow in her life! It's suicidal to drag race in snow and ice, especially in those damn cars where all that matters is the torque to weight ratio and which car does 0 to 60 the quickest!" Trevor shouts.

"You've done it before in Ludendorff and by some cosmic twist of fate, you survived! And I have been in snow or did last year's Christmas trip to Liberty City slip your mind?!" Sachi says, pressing a towel to Carly's hip.

"That was different, you didn't drive last year. In fact, up until 8 months ago, you didn't drive on 4 wheels at all. I lived in snow, Sachi, I got to know it, it was what I learnt to drive in. You learnt to drive in scorching heat and in a car where a single raindrop means the end of the planet!" Trevor says.

"Look, T… I know you're worried but to be plain honest, with how you're acting, I don't give a damn. I _am_ racing on the 23rd, I _am_ doing it in my car and nothing you can say or do will ever stop me from doing so!" Sachi says, shouting at the end.

"He wouldn't be worried if Carly and I lost one of our kids! He'd happily dance on one of the graves!" Johnny says after walking in, closing the door and running over to Carly, helping her sit down.

"Piss off, Trevor! Or do I have to give you a repeated beating after you traumatised Dawn?!" Franklin says.

"What did he do to her?!" Carly asks.

"He and Immy got arguing, Dawn shouted at them to stop fighting and he grabbed her by her hair and pressed a fucking knife to her neck, saying some crazy crap like 'the big people fight and the little people either take it or take off, take your pick'. Immy's just taken her to the hospital to get stitched up, that cut was at least 3 inches long!" Franklin says.

Infuriated, Johnny grabbed the nail gun and shot it multiple times, 5 nails slamming into Trevor's right shoulder and making him scream in agony.

"You absolute fuck… it may just be a scratch to us, but a 3 inch cut is huge to someone as small as Dawn! That's pretty much 2 thirds of her neck length!" Johnny growls angrily.

Trevor pulled the nails out, dropping them to the carpet and glaring at Carly.

"Nice choice on the fucking husband!" Trevor says sarcastically.

"You've threatened and insulted us for long enough to know my answer to that, Trevor. If you don't like it, find some other poor girl to call your niece!" Carly says.

"You-" Trevor starts to shout, Carly punching him in the face.

"I've put up with your abuse for long enough, _hoping_ that you would be like you used to! But apparently, Uncle T never bloody existed to begin with, it was ALL JUST A FUCKED UP LIE!" Carly shouts, yelling louder at the end. "Get out of our lives and stay gone or Matt is not gonna see his dad alive again!" She yells, unaware that Matt and K8lynn heard her.

"You… would do that?! You'd kill my dad?!" Matt says in shock.

"He shot me with a nail gun, aiming for Sachi of all people… have your parents told you the whole truth?" Carly says after turning to face the 5'11" 16 year old boy.

"Some of it, other bits I worked out myself… but none of it justifies threatening that! You would really break me and Mom like that, Carly?! I thought of you almost like a fucking aunt and you turn around and say that?!" Matt says, shouting at the end.

"And what if Sachi had walked out there?! What if he had shot her in the heart, huh?! Your dad has tried to kill her before! Or are you too much like him to see it?!" Carly shouts, K8lynn trying to calm both of them down and seeing the deep wound in Carly's right hip.

"You really would… wouldn't you? You'd break me inside, me and your friend, my mom… forget it. No one like you is family to me, Carly… don't you ever let me see your face again." Matt says, disturbingly calmly, before leaving the house as quietly as he'd entered.

"Matthew David Philips!" K8lynn says loudly, running after him.

"Why should I care if Dad kills that blonde haired violet eyed mistake?!" Matt yells, K8lynn slapping him.

"She is not a mistake… she is your family and you will not turn into the monster your father once was by leaving like this!" K8lynn says.

"How can you care, Mom?! She said she'd kill Dad, she would happily snap our hearts in half and you don't even care?! Do you really even love Dad at all?!" Matt shouts.

"He's been trying to rip your aunt and uncle's lives apart, repeatedly! Trevor, you either tell him the whole truth or I will!" K8lynn says after Sachi throws Trevor out, slams the door and locks it… Matt saw the look in Sachi's eyes though, she had heard him call her a mistake and it felt like a knife had been plunged into her heart.

"Maybe I'm just seeing it wrong… maybe they're not wrong at all, maybe I should just wish you happy parenting and then only call you both K8lynn and Trevor! How's that, huh?! Or better yet… how about just forget you all and leave?! You've both been on the streets before, maybe I should really be like my parents, should I?!" Matt says, yelling towards the end.

"Fine! My opinion on Sachi hasn't changed because she's turned out like her mother! She used to be such a sweet kid and then the second she hit her teen years, it was like a fucking switched flipped!" Trevor shouts.

"Dad… for gods sake, there's a word for that, you know… it's this completely natural thing called puberty, and if it doesn't happen, something is very wrong! You hate it when people grow up, don't you?! I've seen the way you look when I'm with Lisa, you hate it because I'm not a little kid, because I'm actually thinking about my future!... Well if that's really who you are, then Carly in there is 110% right about you!" Matt says, shouting halfway through.

Matt walked into the house, closing the door and seeing Carly stitching herself up and her and Sachi with tears running down their faces. He walked over to them, Sachi glaring at him and backing away and Matt knew she was still mad.

"I'm sorry… he just confessed to it, Sachi… you mean nothing different to him now than you did before you were born." Matt says, knowing what happened when Sachi looked away. She'd thought Trevor was like that for years, but to actually hear it in words was completely different.

"I just… damn it, fuck this negative atmosphere crap!" Sachi says, grabbing her keys and not even putting her shoes on as she walked outside, completely ignoring Trevor and K8lynn as she got into her Vacca, reversed out of the driveway and sped off down the street, towards the city.

"Hey, easy." Matt says, he and Johnny helping Carly sit back down when she stood up.

"I just wish she wouldn't... drive when she's upset." Carly says. She stood up again, ran outside and got into the Cheval Fugitive with Johnny and Matt following her.

"Fucking lot of traitors!" Trevor growled, K8lynn punching him.

"How, by going to look for the girl who's heart you just broke into pieces?! You're the real traitor and don't bother coming back home!" K8lynn yells, taking her rings off and throwing them at Trevor before leaving.

At full speed, the Vacca could've easily put 20 miles between Sachi and Carly, Johnny and Matt, if given the time. But fresh skid marks on the road were the only sign they needed to know where she was going, even more when they were passed by two police Staniers with their LED light racks and sirens blasting. It was at the airport where they found Sachi, skidding and speeding erratically across the runways. As soon as she saw the Fugitive, she slammed on the brakes, the Vacca spinning as it's wheels created a cloud of smoke, thick with the smell of hot rubber.

Carly, Johnny and Matt raced out and ran over to Sachi, who immediately ran to them and hugged them, seeing the terror in Carly's eyes.

"Mom… I'm sorry, I…" Sachi says before they all heard the noise, the four huge turbines of a jumbo jet coming in to land.

Sachi didn't even think before running back into the runway to the Vacca, which was right in the path of the plane. Knowing she wouldn't have enough time to get in, she simply reached inside, released the handbrake and pressed the accelerator with her hand, the car launching forward… but the force knocked Sachi down to the ground and she let out a scream that would've been deafening had it not been for the plane noise, as her right hand was rolled over by the Vacca's rear wheel. Through the shock and disorientation caused by the injury, she caught a flash of orange and a glance of 'Adios Airlines' as the plane came past, the landing gear narrowly missing her by less than 5 feet and the scraping telling her that one of the jet's engines had scraped the Vacca's roof.

"Sachi!" Carly screamed, her, Johnny and Matt running to Sachi and helping her up and away from the Vacca. She carefully raised Sachi's arm to look at the hand, horrified when she saw multiple splits in the skin and small pieces of bone jutting out of a few of them, which told her that the bones in Sachi's hand had pretty much all been crushed and grinded up.

"Fucking hell… I've gotta… change those tires." Sachi manages to say, not daring to look at her hand as the pain was bad enough.

"Hospital first… and don't ever scare us to death like that again, baby." Carly says as she once again pulled Sachi into her arms.

"Sorry, Mom… occupational hazard." Sachi says, managing to form a slight grin on her face, Carly stopping her as by instinct, she tried to pull the loose bits of bone out of her hand.

Mount Zonah was a madhouse and Camari and Jess had both shown up to check on a friend and fellow crew member.

"Who's idea was it to let Harry get piss drunk?!" Camari growled.

"Blame whoever came up with Christmas Time wine in the rec room." Jess says before nodding behind Camari as she saw Carly helping Sachi sit down as Johnny frantically spoke to a doctor, unable to not notice the amount of blood that was on her right hand.

"You know what?... This many people, I think they'll accept a bit of help from a Navy trained medic." Jess says.

"Go on, do your thing." Camari says, the two kissing before Camari ran over to Carly and Sachi. "Well fancy meeting like this, huh?" She says, Sachi instantly hugging her but quickly retreating back as pain seared through her hand and wrist. "What the hell did you do, kiddo?!" She asks.

"Went under a wheel… and I thought carbon fibre was supposed to be lightweight." Sachi says.

"Can you fix her up please?" Carly asks as Johnny ran over to them, Camari seeing tears in both sets of eyes.

"Come here, let me look." Camari says, carefully examining Sachi's hand. She looked at the splits in the back, how some areas of the palm looked to have almost caved in… and when she was done, she didn't have a look that said it'd be a quick fix. "How should I put it?... Your hand is full of bone meal, basically. You've got a lot of crushed bones in there and the pressure caused a muscle or two to burst… not fast and certainly not painless." She says.

"Yeah… so how long until it heals?" Sachi says, Carly wrapping a protective arm around Sachi's shoulders.

"I can't really say. I went into the force as a weapons engineer, not a medic, all I've been trained in is first aid… but I can tell you now for definite that physio, surgery and a lot of little rods and pins will be involved, nerve damage is without a doubt." Camari says.

"Damn… there goes the race. What Trevor wanted all along." Sachi says, Camari's head snapping up when she saw Trevor walk into the E.R and walked over, punching him.

"What is it, let's gang up on Trevor day?!" Trevor yells.

"You know what your anger did?! Look at her hand!" Camari yells, pointing to Sachi's hand.

"Good… no more racing, best news I've heard all week!" Trevor says.

"Right, dishonourable discharge, ya twat!" Camari says, grabbing Trevor and dragging him out of the hospital and throwing him down. "Huh… thrown out on your ass again." She says.

"Fuck you… you've got soldier values stuffed up you!" Trevor says, Camari grabbing him and pulling him up.

"You want to play soldiers, T?! Fine, let's play! Attention!" Camari shouts.

"You think this is funny?!" Trevor asks.

"You will stand to attention, soldier! I am your superior officer and you will start showing some respect!" Camari yells.

"Fuck you, fuck your rank, fuck everything it stands for!" Trevor growls.

"Really?... no wonder you were thrown out. You can't even follow simple orders. Do you have any tiny sense of discipline, Trevor? Any at all?" Camari says.

"He doesn't even know what discipline means unless his stepdad is allegedly beating him senseless!" Carly says angrily after storming over to them. "My little girl is hurting and you're enjoying it?! Enjoy this!" She says, slamming a scalpel into Trevor's right eye and making him scream in agony.

"As I said… dishonourably discharged… from the family." Camari says.

After getting Sachi admitted, Carly called Jack and asked him to watch Jason and the others, Jack knowing Carly was absolutely worried and worn out.

"It's alright, Carly. Rey's off in San Fierro to reunite with some old friends of hers, so I've got this. You and Sachi try to rest up over there." Jack says.

"We'll try… damn it and Trevor even had the nerve to fucking smirk!" Carly says angrily.

"Don't worry about Trevor… if he turns up here, I've got Rey's short barrel revolver." Jack says.

"Make every shot count, Uncle Idiot!" Sachi says sleepily.

"Don't worry, kiddo… and stop fighting the anaesthetic, you need to be fixed." Jack says. One thing Sachi always had, ever since she was 5 the first time it happened, was a strong fear of going into surgery. Even though she knew she'd be asleep, she was still terrified every time.

"I know… I'm… trying." Sachi says.

"Occupy your mind, Sach… think of racing with Jamie, trees and road rushing past you, V12 roaring in the back… or is it not a rear engined car? Maybe it's front engined like the Obey 9F Cabriolet." Jack says, Sachi closing her eyes and thinking of it… and when her mind was occupied, the fear of the surgery went away and soon enough, she was out.

"She's out… I hope her dreams are peaceful." Carly whispers, lightly stroking Sachi's hair.

"We can only wish." Camari says as she walks in, Carly seeing that she was holding an X-Ray scan. "Just as I thought… bone meal." She says, handing it to Carly, who's eyes widened as she examined it. In the main part of Sachi's hand, the bones leading to her index and middle fingers were completely shattered, her ring finger bone being broken into 3 or 4 sections and her little finger bone having nothing more than a crack. Her thumb's bone was still there, though in half and the bottom half wasn't where it belonged.

"That's… not gonna be easy, is it?" Carly asks, Camari shaking her head.

"If the hand is even savable, that's gonna be multiple surgeries and a hell of a lot of damage." Camari says.

Carly retrieved her phone and showed Camari the MRI of her old shoulder injury, Camari seeing that the bullet had caused multiple cracks in Carly's collarbone and tore the labrum muscle in half.

"Well… like mother, like daughter I guess." Camari says.

"If it had been just the collarbone, I would've been healed within a month… I spent 4 months in a sling and 7 recovering completely… well, mostly." Carly says.

"Being a hand, Sachi will probably be about the same, probably no longer than 9 months… but somehow, with how she's become about her racing, I don't think she'll keep it easy for that long." Camari says.

"Yeah… Trevor better sleep with one eye open or he'll wake up with a car sized dent in his caravan." Carly says, Sachi laughing sleepily as she imagined that.

"I have the feeling he would regardless of whether he was asleep or not… here, this is what they've done so far." Camari says, handing Carly a second X-Ray of Sachi's hand, from after the surgery. Her little finger had been re-positioned, her ring finger bone was now held together by two tiny rods either side and her thumb was the same. "They said they were having to call a specialist from Pillbox Hill for the other two fingers, they're the bastards that are gonna cause the trouble." She says. The doctors had cleared up the shattered ones a bit, the bone sections weren't spread all across the hand anymore, but they hadn't made any permanent fix yet.

"Recovery's gonna be hell…" Johnny says after walking in, seeing the X-Ray.

"She'll manage… she's a strong girl, always was." Camari says.

Trevor was walking around when he heard small footsteps and turned around, about to yell when he saw little Carly standing there.

"How could you do what you did, Uncle T? To me, to my daughter… how could you?!" Young Carly demanded, Trevor rattled by the glare and thinking he was hallucinating.

"You… you're just gonna change and abandon me… you're not worth thinking about." Trevor says.

" _You_ changed! _You_ abandoned me after _you_ let Uncle Brad die!" Young Carly yelled, Trevor realising it after 28 years… she changed when she saw him running off into the snow.

When his senses came back to him, Trevor sat there and thought… before he finally decided. He'd stop Sachi from racing, separate her from those people.

Whatever the cost.


End file.
